Governor signs bill moving up Illinois' primary date

SPRINGFIELD -- Illinois’ 2008 primary election will be Feb. 5, more than a month earlier than previously planned. Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed the legislative proposal into law on Wednesday.

Adriana Colindres

By ADRIANA COLINDRES

STATE CAPITOL BUREAU

SPRINGFIELD -- Illinois’ 2008 primary election will be Feb. 5, more than a month earlier than previously planned.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed the legislative proposal into law on Wednesday.

Supporters of the February primary date, first proposed by House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, cite a couple of reasons for the change. They say it would boost the prospects of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, and give the state a greater say in who gets nominated for president.

“Illinois is the fifth-largest state in the country,” Blagojevich said in a news release announcing that he had signed House Bill 426. “The people who live here deserve to play a bigger role in deciding who the presidential candidates will be.”

Madigan said: “It puts Illinois in the hunt in terms of selecting the nominee of both parties, Democrat and Republican.”

Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman for the Obama campaign, said in an e-mailed statement that the earlier primary date “is not something that (Obama) actively lobbied for.” Even so, she added, Obama “welcomes the opportunity for his home state to play a role in the nominating process and he is grateful for the base of support he has from friends, family and supporters in Illinois.”

A spokesman for the presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, another top Democratic contender, said the former first lady would not concede Illinois to Obama. Clinton lives in New York but grew up in the suburban Chicago community of Park Ridge.

“We obviously don’t have any say in the primary calendar,” said Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee. “So we are just planning to play the cards that are dealt us, and we’ll compete wherever there is a primary or a caucus.”

“Illinois is important to us. The senator obviously has strong roots in Illinois and is getting tremendous support in Illinois,” he added.

California, New York and Georgia are among the states that already have set next year’s primary election for Feb. 5, and at least a dozen other states also are considering the same date, which observers have dubbed “Super Duper Tuesday.”

Kent Redfield, a political studies professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield, said the earlier date would not make Illinois “the major player” in the presidential nomination process. But the state would have fallen deeper into irrelevancy if it had retained the March primary date, he said.

Mike Lawrence, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, added: “The odds are much greater that we’ll be a major player in February than they were when the primary was in March.”

The new law does not apply only to presidential candidates. It also affects candidates for all other public offices on primary-election ballots in even-numbered years, including contenders for U.S. Congress, the Illinois General Assembly, municipal governments and school boards.

The moved-up primary date means that prospective political candidates will have to file their candidacy papers sooner. Candidates who want to run in the 2008 primary will need to file Oct. 29-Nov. 5, said Rupert Borgsmiller, director of campaign disclosure at the Illinois State Board of Elections. If not for the new law, petitions would have been due in early December.

Candidates also will encounter new rules and earlier deadlines when it comes to campaign finance reports.

Semi-annual campaign finance reports, previously due on Jan. 31 and July 31, now will be due on Jan. 20 and July 20, Borgsmiller said. The Jan. 20, 2008, due date will be pushed back to Jan. 22 because the 20th falls on a Sunday and the following day is the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Candidates no longer will have to file a pre-election campaign finance report for the general primary, Borgsmiller said. But as of Jan. 1, all donations of more than $500 must be reported to the State Board of Elections within two business days.

Adriana Colindres can be reached at (217) 782-6292 or adriana.colindres@sj-r.com.

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